Hills and Hollows – Grantham Ecology

2017 Retrospective – The Rest!

December 31, 2017Grantham Ecology1 Comment

I like to take the opportunity which the end of the year presents to look back over what I’ve seen and encountered. Some fall nicely into groups so do check out trees, wildflowers, butterflies, bees and invertebrates on their own posts!

The remainder are individual species or places which don’t form a group, but which are an important part of the year just passed. I hope you enjoy!

Easegill Bat Surveys

I was lucky to be invited along to a hibernation check in the caves in Easegill, Cumbria by a friend in the bat group there. We found a number of hibernating myotis and brown long-eared bats in the various cave systems, along with the tissue moths, herald moths and cave spiders which use the same habitats over winter. It was a great day out in some stunning scenery, and the opportunity to do a spot of caving whilst searching for wildlife was a real treat! You can read more, and watch a short compilation video, on this post from January 2017.

Snowy walk along Stanage Edge

It takes around an hour and a half for us to get to some of the most stunning walks in the Peak District; a bit of a trek but always worth the visit especially if there’s snow to line the fields and de-mark the landscape with its series of hedges and stone walls. I love too how the hills in the far distance can give an illusion of mountains when they become snow-covered!

Smooth newt – Lissotriton vulgaris

I couldn’t resist this photograph when we were undertaking translocations at the beginning of the year. The legislative driver behind the translocation is the great crested newt, but we take the opportunity to move any species we encounter to a place of safety. With the juveniles, such as this little smooth newt, you need to keep a sharp eye to make sure you spot them all!

Common frog – Rana temporaria

Spring is one of the most rewarding times to have a garden pond – when the croaking begins and the surface is a mass of calling frogs. This was taken on a cool March day when the frogs had decided that spring had sprung! In this photo, I tried to capture the turbulence of the water which these amorous amphibians bring to a placid garden pond.

Slow worm – Anguis fragilis

We encountered this slow worm under a piece of corrugated metal in the woods near Woodhall Spa in the early summertime. There had been a rainshower which caught us out and the slow worms too had taken shelter. As the sun came out and the corrugated metal began to warm, the chances of catching one reduced significantly as they are anything but slow when they want to be! These reptiles are in fact legless lizards rather than snakes. Their habit of sheltering beneath these artificial refugia forms the basis of the reptile survey technique we use in ecological consultancy to find out whether reptiles are present on a particular site.

Dandelion seedhead before the full moon

The was taken at Muston Meadows at midnight when the moon was full and I couldn’t resist a walk. The dandelion seedheads glowed white against the dark grass but I was struggling to capture this in a photograph – then I thought this might make an interesting angle!

Shropshire Hills

We spent a few days over the May bank holiday in Ireland for a wedding, coming back via Anglesey and spending a night in Shropshire on our way back east. We walked over the Long Mynd at dusk, heading back towards our campsite, and this was the view as we began to descend.

Church of Saint Mary, Whitby

A weekend camping near Robin Hood’s Bay in the summer found us in Whitby before walking back along the coast. This is the taken at the Church of Saint Mary – set above the town and referenced in Dracula. I was struck with this view of the tombstones dark against the long meadow grasses and wished this was a more common sight – cemeteries and churchyards can be beautiful places full of life after death, if they’re managed sensitively for wildlife rather than manicured as bowling greens!

Curbar Edge, Derbyshire

We had a survey site which saw me out in the Peak District until 7pm one evening in August – after which I took the opportunity to see the heather and take a walk along Curbar Edge at sunset. This is the view out across from the Edge as the sun was sinking low on the horizon.

Vancouver Island

The following are a few photographs from Vancouver Island this year – we encountered some spectacular wildlife and were amazed by the scenery. You can read more in my blog posts here, but below are a few highlights.

Anna’s Hummingbird in Victoria

American red squirrel at Long Beach, Tofino

Black squirrel in Stanley Park, Vancouver

Orca’s from Victoria

Grey heron reflection against the vending machines on the marina in Vancouver

Slow worm – Anguis fragilis

This tiny slow worm was one of this year’s juveniles – we were surveying a site in Somerset and this was one of seven young ones which appeared under a single survey mat where the sun warmed a bank at the edge of the site. When I picked it up, it wrapped itself around my finger but was so small that the nose and tail didn’t quite meet!

Sunrise on the day of Storm Ophelia

This photograph was taken of the countryside in Warwickshire on the day Storm Ophelia swept across the UK. At that time, I didn’t realise what was causing the effect but was just taken by the colours – it turned out that the day was to be filled with the pseudo-apocolyptic light brought on by the Sahara sands.

Cattle at Muston Meadows

Muston Meadows is an ancient haymeadow and a National Nature Reserve in Leicestershire. The site is managed with a late-summer hay cut and is grazed in the winter by cattle. I visited one frosty morning in December and they were delighted to have a visitor, charging over before stopping and checking me out. They then accompanied me all the way off the site so perhaps their role is security as well as site management!

Icicles under Burbage Bridge

On a snowy cold day in December, I took a walk through the white from the Longshaw Estate in Derbyshire, through woodland and across tors and encountering these beautiful icicles hanging beneath the bridge which takes the road over Burbage Brook.

Clematis seedhead – Clematis vitalba

These are also commonly known as old man’s beard and it’s easy to see why! I came across these seedheads in a hedgerow on a survey site in Bedfordshire where the wind had left them with this shape over time – I liked the feeling of motion which they held even when still. It seemed appropriate for seeds which are waiting for their time to take to the wind and begin a new plant elsewhere in the landscape.

Teasel seedheads – Dipsacus fullonum

On the same site as the clematis above, I also found an amazing stand of teasel seedheads. These striking plants are excellent for wildlife – in the summer they provide an abundance of nectar for pollinators such as bees and butterflies, and the winter seedheads will play host to flocks of goldfinches foraging for the seeds.

Things to see in January Number 1: Head up to the Hills and Hollows to watch the owls at dusk

December 27, 2012December 27, 2012Grantham EcologyLeave a comment

January can seem one of the darkest, deadest months when the problem of hibernating/dormant/absent creatures is compounded by the grimness of the weather which altogether makes staying inside the easiest option. However, there are a few exciting sights to be seen in and around Grantham even in this gloomiest of months. The first of these is owl-watching on the hills which rise up to the west of the town.

Dusk comes early at this time of year which makes the days depressingly short but does at least make crepuscular species – those which come out at dawn and dusk – a lot easier to see at sociable hours.

Barn Owl (Tyto alba) after a successful hunt

If you walk the footpath which continues up a muddy track through an archway of trees at the end of Beacon Lane, you will quickly find yourself surrounded by rough grassland, a perfect habitat for voles and mice and, therefore, a perfect hunting ground for owls!

Around 3 – 4 o’clock in January, you will begin to see them come out and hunt, especially on the broad open grassland to the right at the top of the footpath. Several barn owls – a native resident species – can often be seen, along with a short-eared owl which has taken up residence this year. My photograph is sadly rather pathetic but you at least get a feeling for this impressive bird – a much better gallery from the Hills and Hollows in previous years can be found here.

The short-eared owl is a migratory species which arrives in the UK in early winter from the northern continent – Scandinavia, Russia and Iceland. They will often stay in one place throughout the winter before flying back to their breeding grounds in the north. You will notice how much larger a bird the short-eared owl is with broad, almost buzzard-like wings. It flies low and drops regularly and dramatically into the grassland hunting its prey – you could almost imagine it falling like a child and getting quickly back to its feet as it progresses up and down a hunting patch. The barn owl by comparison will often perch and watch before gliding over the grassland, hovering lower and lower when it spots something tasty until, at the last minute, it drops silently upon its unsuspecting prey.

Take along binoculars, if you can, and don’t forget to wrap up warm as it gets cold when the wind blows! Even if you don’t see the owls (and I’ve no doubt you will), the view across Grantham from this height can be spectacular! You may need a little patience but, as the darkness falls, the birds will surely appear.

Winter flocks of Yellowhammer

January 30, 2012January 30, 2012Grantham EcologyLeave a comment

In the winter, flocks of yellowhammer (latin name Emberiza citrinella) form and right now, we’re lucky enough to have one such flock up at the hills and hollows overlooking the town. They gather into these flocks to feed on seeds in cereals and grassland fields. You can see them gathered in the shrubs and trees before descending down to the ground to feed in the relative safety that fifty pairs of eyes affords. The kestrel is seen hovering not so very far away but this doesn’t seem to concern them much. They are sometimes joined by other small species – I have seen chaffinches in with this small flock which numbers around 60 birds.

The yellowhammer is one of the ‘red list’ bird species in the UK – this classification is given to species which are of the highest conservation priority. This doesn’t necessarily mean that they are on the brink of extinction but may mean that their population is experiencing worrying trends. The recent population decline in yellowhammer is the reason for this designation.

Starlings are a good example of why populations can appear fine whilst still being of high conservation concern. Their UK population is estimated to be around 800,000 breeding pairs but this is only around a third of their population peak in the mid 1970’s. If this trend continued, we would be down to only 270,000 by 2050. The RSPB’s website has more detail on the starling decline.